The SPFL pilot scheme helping to Stub out Scotland’s pyro problem
Clubs seeing the light after educating young fans about the dangers
NICKY REID shares the concern of many in Scottish football over the use of hazardous pyrotechnics by supporters. “It’s only a matter of time before someone is permanently or even fatally injured,” frets the chief executive of the SPFL Trust.
The 3-0 win for Rangers in Kilmarnock at the start of December ended in a police investigation following a facial injury to an 11-year-old supporter.
The incident met the threshold for a suspended SPFL sanction, reducing the number of away tickets by 50 to be triggered. The league are now in discussions with the Ibrox club over where and when.
In August, the SPFL confirmed that Aberdeen, Celtic and Partick Thistle had also been found guilty of breaching league rules by failing to prevent large scale, organised and illegal pyrotechnic displays at three separate games. All three were handed suspended sanctions and Aberdeen, Hibernian and Motherwell have now been spoken to over more recent incidents at games. Further action can’t be ruled out.
“You shake your head when you get to a Sunday night and another incident has happened. At some point we just have to say, ‘you know what? We don’t want this in the game’.
While Reid accepts that punitive measures are part of the solution, she pinpoints education as one of the most powerful levers football has to solve the menace posed by fireworks, flares and smoke bombs.
The SPFL Trust recently launched a pilot project to raise awareness amongst fans of the safety concerns around the issue. Aimed at fans aged between 15 and 24, courses have already delivered education to 36 fans, with another two planned before the end of the year.
Funded by money from the Scottish Government, the SFA and SPFL, clubs are invited to refer troublesome supporters for some education and Alloa and Queen of the South have already taken advantage of this. Over time, the SPFL Trust hope to secure funding to go into schools and remind the fans of the future that actions have consequences.
“What has really stood out is that, on the Queen of the South programme, 100 per cent of the young people said that they wouldn’t use a flare or pyrotechnic again,” Reid says.
“Clearly that remains to be seen, because it is very different when you are in a learning environment and not in the stands facing peer pressure.
“What was also interesting was that none of them knew it was illegal and none of them knew that a flare burned at 2200 degrees.
“It’s a sad reflection of where we are that this project is necessary. But we can give a resource to our network of clubs and trusts to try and change some of the narrative around the issue because there are quite a number of young people, sadly, who are using pyrotechnics.
“It’s not going to be the golden bullet which suddenly stops their use altogether, but we are very confident that it will be an important part of the puzzle.”
A former youth goalkeeper with Queen of the South, Dan Armstrong, was the club’s commercial manager before he moved into a new role as chief executive last year. Last month the lifelong Burnley fan hosted a pilot project for 12 young fans from Dumfries Academy following a raft of pyro incidents at Palmerston and believes football has more to gain by listening to young supporters playing with fire than it does from wagging fingers.
“There were 28 incidents of pyrotechnics in Scotland in all the police divisions,” Armstrong says. “And we had seven of them at our ground and one at an away ground. At that point you begin to wonder if maybe we are the problem here…
“So the pilot was massive for us. We were straight on the phone saying, ‘we’ll do it’.”
Following a game against Kelty Hearts in August, the League One side issued a statement condemning
“unacceptable behaviour” and threatening football banning orders and possible imprisonment for the perpetrators. After meeting the fans involved, Armstrong realised that few, if any, had any idea that they were doing anything wrong. They were simply aping behaviour they had seen from PSG ultras on TV.
“We have a young group of lads who are actually brilliant lads,” says the CEO. “It doesn’t make them bad guys because they come to the games with pyrotechnics.
“Every time we said, ‘guys we need to stop, the police are on at us’ they would come back with, ‘why are the police on at you?’
“Initially they took pride in the fact that they were actually leading Scotland at the start of the course. By the end, they were a bit embarrassed and when we had that chat with them they were receptive to the whole thing.
“Sometimes when you work with teenagers of that age, it’s difficult to gauge how they will take to being told this, that and the other. But on the course we said to them, ‘guys we’ve all been young, we’ve all done things like that’.
“I used to follow Burnley up and down the country and if I was to say to them that I never saw a flare go off I would be lying.
“So we said to them, ‘this doesn’t make you bad people’. We just had to give them the education and what the implications were for us as a club.”
When Queen of the South were drawn against Dunfermline in the third round of the Scottish Cup, the young team had a problem. Official buses refused to take them because of their reputational issues and Armstrong saw an opportunity to strike a deal.
“We told them that if there was no pyro between then and the game, we would pay for the bus to Dunfermline. There were 35 of them who went to Fife. They were aged between 13 and 20 and navigating to Glasgow, then Dunfermline, by public transport wouldn’t have been easy.
“The fact they now feel free to approach the club and explain their situation and ask for help to get out of it stems, we believe, from the pilot. We would never have developed this relationship with the young team if it hadn’t been for the project.”
When Queens face Hamilton on December 27 the club hope to attract fans returning home for Christmas.
The young fans who used to light
smoke bombs have now been asked to design flags to hand out to pupils of Dumfries Academy coming to the game.
Reid believes clubs like Queen of the South are finding new and creative ways to get to the root of a problem with deeper, societal roots.
“A lot of our young people feel disenfranchised and they are angry. There are too few places where young people can come together, but football is an environment where they can express their collective frustrations and have a voice. They can unite and indulge their tribalism.
“But what we have done is switch the narrative to give them a voice and make them feel valued and heard.
“It doesn’t take much to change the way they engage with you. It just takes some people to believe in them, that they can do different things and do better, and all of a sudden the problematic behaviour stops.”
ASSISTANT manager at Stirling Albion, Tony McMinn, is the driving force behind the Hive Community Centre in Alloa. The former Klub21 nightclub is now a joint venture between Alloa Athletic and the Wasps Community Club offering match-day access to members and a discount for local businesses which can be withdrawn for unacceptable behaviour.
Kids who used to light flares at football games are now encouraged to design murals and flags on a Friday night instead. If they prefer to learn how to bang a drum in rhythm
It just takes some people to believe in them, that they can do different things and do better, and all of a sudden the problematic behaviour stops
at the game they can do that on a Monday.
McMinn realised something had to be done when some young fans had to be evacuated from a section of Recreation Park for their own safety.
“They let off so many smoke bombs they had to get out because they couldn’t breath. So there is intervention in that case, but a lot of the work we are doing is around prevention as well, getting to them earlier.”
In September, the SPFL Trust encouraged clubs and fan trusts to apply for grants of up to £5000 to encourage positive and creative supporter behaviour on matchdays. The target group was fans aged between 16 and 24 or – to put it another way – those most likely to throw pyros on to the pitch.
“That has been massive in terms of us being able to engage with our young fans at Alloa,” adds McMinn.
“A drummer comes in on a Monday night and actually shows our fans how to drum properly.
“Some of them are pretty terrible drummers and other fans complain about that all the time.
“We also have a community artist working with us and kids can come in and hang about in a safe space and design a mural and flags.
“That worked so well that they now have their own section in the stand with a mural that they have designed.”
For clubs, the financial challenges posed by pyrotechnic use are multiple. Aside from the risk of a fine from the SPFL, the issue has ramped up the cost of policing on matchdays. For teams with an artificial surface, the cost of repairing damage caused by flares on the pitch might have a detrimental impact on the manager’s player budget.
“It’s funny,” says McMinn. “The first time we actually spoke to the young people in a school, we allowed anyone with an interest in Alloa to come to a meeting. And they told us that they wanted a better team on the pitch. And that the manager Andy Graham needed a new striker.
“We had to tell them that we couldn’t afford a new striker because we’d had to spend £5000 on the pitch repairing sections damaged by pyrotechnics. And at lower league level that’s a signing on fee or a transfer fee
“What you get then is, ‘aw, we didn’t realise it cost that much to fix the pitch…”
While SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster, SPFL Chief Operative Officer Calum Beattie or the chief constable of Police Scotland can speak out publicly, Reid believes clubs themselves hold the most influence and sway over young supporters. The most effective deterrent to anti-social behaviour appears to be an appeal to stop harming the club they love. The stigma and the disapproval of their fellow supporters concerned by damage to their reputation or finances, can be a powerful driver.
“It hits home more when it comes directly from football. Yeah, the SPFL Trust or the SFA can go out and say their piece, but to have that message come from the club they hold so dear is more influential than it is when it comes from our colleagues at the police or fire service.
“There are other ways to make a game feel exciting and generate atmosphere. We can do it.
“We just have to be realistic about the scale of the challenge ahead and the time it will take.”